Jalandhar: A day after violent unrest erupted at Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Phagwara, Punjab Police on Monday secured all academic and hostel blocks. Internet services around the campus were suspended to prevent the spread of unverified reports and rumours.
Scores of police personnel, supervised by SSPs from 10 districts, were stationed on campus.
Punjab director general of police Gaurav Yadav and special DGP (law and order) PK Sinha inspected security arrangements on the directions of chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday morning.
The unrest began on Sunday when a masked mob vandalised university property, torched police vehicles, and set parts of the campus buildings on fire following unverified reports that an outsider had raped a female student recently. Demonstrators blocked the Amritsar-Delhi National Highway-44 for nearly 12 hours.
Kapurthala police registered a rape case under Section 64 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against unidentified persons, though the victim’s identity remains unconfirmed.
Jalandhar deputy inspector general (DIG) Naveen Singla constituted a seven-member special investigation team (SIT), headed by the Phagwara superintendent of police, with student representatives included as members.
Outsiders involved: DGP
{{/usCountry}}Outsiders involved: DGP
{{/usCountry}}On Monday, civil and district officials, along with university administrators, resumed talks with students.
The students’s demands include the immediate identification and arrest of the accused, investigations into past cases of sexual assault and suicides on campus; implementation of a female-only staff policy in girls’ hostels; resignation of the warden at Girls’ Hostel No. 3, where the alleged incident took place; elections for student president; and a direct address to protesters by LPU Chancellor and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Mittal
The DGP said that police are scanning CCTV footage and social media videos to identify perpetrators, noting that outside miscreants were involved in the arson. “The probe will be carried on the basis of technical and digital angles and the accused will be brought to book,” Yadav said.
He said police exercised restraint despite provocation and were actively facilitating dialogue between students and the LPU management.
Special DGP Sinha confirmed that preliminary CCTV scans of the area, conducted in the presence of student representatives, showed no suspicious activity, though forensic checks remain underway. Police have not ruled out an organised effort to destabilise local law and order. Sinha also clarified that walkie-talkies seized during the commotion belonged to off-duty military officers, including a Major, checking on the safety of colleagues’ children.
Worried parents arrive
An uneasy calm prevailed in the university as students started heading home after the LPU management decided to suspend regular academic classes for 10 days from September 28.
The mid-term examinations have been postponed until further notice. The university authorities advised students to stay inside their hostels/places of residence and avoid unnecessary movement or involvement in any unrest activities in the interest of their own safety.
On Monday, a large number of students left by trains, buses and cabs, while worried parents reached the campus from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan to pick up their wards.
Police personnel allowed them to enter the premises only after due frisking.
“I have a train to Muzaffarnagar in the evening. My parents are extremely worried after seeing the visuals of arson and loot on social media platforms,” said a student of the computer science department.
Ravneet Kumar, a parent from Jammu, said he didn’t want his daughter to spend a single night on the campus in conditions as “the university management has failed to ensure the safety of wards.”
The university has a strength of nearly 45,000 students, of which 25,000 stay in hostels, while the others are putting up in paying guest accommodations.